That wasn't the "look" of this crowd in Charlottesville, with their grooming and tucked in polos they looked more like insurance salesmen and IT directors from the south and midwest. (and I'm sure some of them are...I just hope that lots of close ups of faces are out there on social media, their families, friends and employers need to know who they are associating with, and act accordingly.)

QuoteA White Nationalist who attends the University of Reno, Nevada says that he is not the “angry racist” that is portrayed in a viral photo of him carrying a torch at a white nationalist protest rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Peter Cvjetanovic, 20, told KTVN that he traveled from Reno to Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The student said that he wanted to attend the rally to support the white nationalist movement.

“I came to this march for the message that white European culture has a right to be here just like every other culture,” Cvjetanovic opined. “It is not perfect; there are flaws to it, of course. However I do believe that the replacement of the statue will be the slow replacement of white heritage within the United States and the people who fought and defended and built their homeland. Robert E Lee is a great example of that. He wasn’t a perfect man, but I want to honor and respect what he stood for during his time.”

Cvjetanovic said that he never expected the frightening photo of him to go viral.

“I did not expect the photo to be shared as much as it was,” he noted. “I understand the photo has a very negative connotation. But I hope that the people sharing the photo are willing to listen that I’m not the angry racist they see in that photo.”

Cvjetanovic added: “As a white nationalist, I care for all people. We all deserve a future for our children and for our culture. White nationalists aren’t all hateful; we just want to preserve what we have.”

I'm not a fascist storm trooper, I just share a beer with some of them sometimes and go to a white pride parade together with them as they carry Nazi flags and we have a good ol' time yelling at the hippies with some of us kickin' a little ass for awhile and then go have another beer. I mean, bro, chill. It ain't nothin'. I care for all people. You can see it on my face.

How did nearly half the country elect someone opposed to America’s core values?

To understand how to defeat Trump, we must understand the relationship between automation, capitalism, and Western-style Enlightenment democracy.

We will see how Trump is not a minor misfiring glitch in our democratic process, but rather the result of a systemic problem that has occurred before, a phenomenon that transcends the man. Unbridled capitalism and Western Enlightenment values have been on a collision course for nearly two centuries. Trump is the collision.

How did nearly half the country elect someone opposed to America’s core values?

To understand how to defeat Trump, we must understand the relationship between automation, capitalism, and Western-style Enlightenment democracy.

We will see how Trump is not a minor misfiring glitch in our democratic process, but rather the result of a systemic problem that has occurred before, a phenomenon that transcends the man. Unbridled capitalism and Western Enlightenment values have been on a collision course for nearly two centuries. Trump is the collision.

Interesting read. Thanks!

Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

How did nearly half the country elect someone opposed to America’s core values?

To understand how to defeat Trump, we must understand the relationship between automation, capitalism, and Western-style Enlightenment democracy.

We will see how Trump is not a minor misfiring glitch in our democratic process, but rather the result of a systemic problem that has occurred before, a phenomenon that transcends the man. Unbridled capitalism and Western Enlightenment values have been on a collision course for nearly two centuries. Trump is the collision.

I've been plugging away at reading this long article. I finally finished. It was quite thought-provoking - which is why it took me so long to finish it. I'd read a section and then my brain would go off in many directions and it would take me awhile to mull it over. And then I'd read on and... wash, rinse, repeat.

My general impression is that the author does a good job of building the outlines of a thesis about the nature of enlightenment freedoms and their relationship to capitalism but I think that such a big idea needs a long book to do it justice - a book written by someone with a breadth of knowledge like Jared Diamond (Gun, Germs and Steel). I think there are some really important factors that the author of the article didn't sufficiently take into account. But the author's purpose was probably not to make a masterpiece argument for his thesis in this article, but rather make the case to a general audience that the thesis needs serious consideration. If that was his purpose, then he was successful.

As far the argument goes that he does present, I'm not convinced that capitalism in America is now at the point that it will inevitably collapse into fascism unless we "direct" the inevitable collapse of it into some kind of more socialistic economic system. But if he is correct, then what he has to say about the nature of the more socialistic economic system was lacking by quite a large margin. Essentially, he doesn't have much of anything to say about what that system would look like and how we would get there. Towards the end of the article, he says: "Only a detailed vision of a better, radically different society can answer the demands of Americans who voted for populist candidates like Trump and Sanders." Okay, but what are the details of that vision?

I did enjoy reading the article, though, and as I said, it was thought-provoking so thanks for sharing the link.